Director Ken Loach turns down Turin Film Festival award

21/11/2012

Gesture is act of solidarity with fired film museum workers

Rome, November 21 - British film director Ken Loach
on Wednesday declined an award from the Turin Film Festival in a
gesture of solidarity with workers at the city's film museum
whose jobs were outsourced when they refused to accept salary
cuts.
In a letter written to the festival's organizers, Loach
said he could not accept the award because he disagreed with the
practice of "outsourcing services done by workers with the
lowest salaries".
In the letter to festival organizers, who had awarded Loach
the Gran Torino Prize, the director wrote: "It is with great
sorrow that I find myself forced to refuse the prize which has
been awarded by the Turin Film Festival, a prize which I would
have been very happy to accept, for me and for all those who
have worked on our films".
Loach explained that the "recipe" whereby the lowest-paid
services are outsourced to save money, which often leads bidding
companies to cut costs and fire employees, "is a recipe destined
to generate conflict".
In Turin, the company that runs the city's film museum
recently outsourced security and cleaning services.
Some employees of the film museum subsequently lost their
jobs and those with the lowest salaries were fired after
refusing to accept salary cuts.
Loach said he expected that, in this case, "the museum
would dialogue with the workers and their unions, guarantee the
re-hiring of the fired employees and rethink its outsourcing
strategy".
"We made a film on this very topic, Bread and Roses," Loach
said.
"How could I not respond to a request for solidarity from
the workers who were fired after having fought for their rights?
Having accepted the award and limited myself to a few critical
remarks would have been weak and hypocritical behavior".